Have you ever seen a webpage with a collection of buttons for sharing or logging in like the ones below?

Not all of these buttons are equally relevant, but because there is currently no convenient way to share your preferred services publicly, this approach has become extremely popular, even though the complexity of this interface may actually inhibit sharing!

On the desktop, this problem was solved long ago with what is called the “system registry”. When you install a new application, you are asked whether you want the new application to handle certain kinds of files, like photos. So, for example, if you install a new app and set the new application to be the default “handler” for photos, when you double click a photo next time, it’ll automatically open in your new application.

Until today, that kind of registry didn’t exist for the web, but thanks to a new collaboration between Meebo and several parties including Google, an initial launch of a service that acts as a registry for the web can be found at xauth.org.